INTRODUCTION
Thank you very much indeed for that warm welcome to this important conference.
Let me start by acknowledging the original inhabitants of this land, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and by thanking Aunty Silvia Scott for her Welcome to Country Ceremony.
Let me also thank and acknowledge:
- Verity Firth (NSW Minister for Education);
- Michael Coutts-Trotter (NSW Director General Education and Training);
- Leonie Trimper (President APPA);
- Brian Croke (Executive Director NSW Catholic Education Commission); and
- Kelvin Canavan (Executive Director of Schools Catholic Education Office.
As you know, there’s a huge amount of activity and interest in schools policy at the moment.
Our Education Revolution is now well underway, guided and shaped by the intensive discussions that have been taking place nationally, between governments and education bodies like yours.
Inevitably perhaps, this has produced controversy around certain issues, such as transparency and the need for consistency between all school systems. And we’ve had the tired old claims of hidden agendas and class envy trotted out once again.
In my view these are minor distractions from the real debate, which is about how to raise school quality. And about how we make every school, regardless of its system and its socio-economic status into a great school.
That task is going to take a lot of improvements:
- To get all our children ready to learn by the time they start school;
- To modernize buildings and learning infrastructure;
- To improve curriculum;
- To attract more high achievers to teaching;
- To lift results in under performing areas; and
- To get the long-term funding issues right.
This means the Commonwealth, the States and the non-government school systems have got a lot of issues to tackle.
But ultimately all of these policy and resourcing issues come down to one thing. That’s to improve the quality of what goes on inside the classroom.
The combination of great classroom instructors, led by professional school leaders, using modern educational facilities, to teach the right curriculum, offers the best means to improve outcomes across the nation and overcome the effects of educational disadvantage.
But it’s an approach that has to be applied relentlessly in every school with resources targeted to where help is needed most.
And primary schools have an absolutely crucial role to play here, because economic and childhood development research tells us that it’s far more efficient to tackle educational problems earlier than later.
LITERACY AND NUMERACY PILOTS
A great example of the work of primary schools is their wiliness to be part of our Literacy and Numeracy Pilots Program. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation of this association in getting those started.
The information from these pilot projects will assist when finalising the National Action Plan for Literacy and Numeracy.
We all know that despite all the efforts in recent years, literacy and numeracy rates in low socio-economic status and Indigenous communities are still too low. We need to raise them and the results of the pilots will help us find the best ways to do so.
Earlier efforts have been flawed. For example the former government’s Reading Assistance Vouchers scheme, rebadged as Even Start for this year did not serve the neediest well. Statistics show that under the program those children who needed the assistance most were the most likely not use the voucher.
For example, Northern Territory had a very low take up rate and I am sure you can all reflect on a child in your schools who, despite your best efforts, did not end up being registered and therefore did not receive the assistance.
I want to make sure that every child who needs assistance gets the assistance they need. I know that you all have a passion for ensuring the children in your schools get that great start. Primary schools have always been well placed to identify those children at risk and intervene quickly. I trust the additional resources that will be made available through the National Action Plan for Literacy and numeracy will assist in this task.
The new action plan reflects a new way of working together; teachers, principals, organisations such as APPA, State, Territory and the Federal governments, working together to improve outcomes in schools.
The action plan strengths will include the fact that;
- It’s based on the rigorous use of evidence;
- It places an improved focus on the importance of teaching; and
- It regards principals as important instructional leaders.
A NATIONAL AGENDA OF REFORM AND INVESTMENT
Literacy and numeracy is just one area where substantial change and investment is taking place.
The $4.4 billion Education Tax Refund introduced in the Budget is already helping parents invest in their children’s education by providing a 50 per cent refund every year for key education expenses up to $750 per primary student and $1500 per secondary student.
But beyond these measures we need to and this will involve significant reform and investment.
And the Rudd Government will make the policy changes and commit the resources necessary to succeed.
As you know, this effort is being led at the national level through the Council of Australian Governments.
By the end of this year, the Commonwealth, States and Territories will have completed work on the new National Education Agreement. This compliments the legislation currently in the Parliament allocating $28 billion in funding to non-government schools over the next quadrennium, including $779 million for Indigenous student and program funding.
The COAG process, together with the legislation currently going through the Parliament will give the complete the picture for education funding for the next four years. It will show the complete commitment of the Rudd Government to education.
In addition to funding our schools for their recurrent costs, the COAG agreement is going to help further the cause of school reform and improvement by:
- promoting collaboration across the schools sector;
- providing new targeted National Partnership payments to encourage innovation; and
- demanding transparency and measured improvements in outcomes.
Three specific new National Partnerships will aim to improve teacher quality, reduce educational disadvantage and as I have already mentioned, provide an additional $577 million for Literacy and numeracy initiatives.
NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP ON TEACHER QUALITY
The National Partnership on teacher quality is vitally important.
As the McKinsey report into world school systems said: the quality of a school system simply cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.
The new National Partnership will address the major teacher quality issues including greater flexibility and innovation in teacher recruitment, training, management, professional development and incentives.
It is our intention that it will include new ways of attracting high achieving graduates into teaching and rewarding teachers of excellence.
This of course involves complex issues and I thank APPA for its contributions to the debate. I accept that the criteria chosen to reward good teachers must be objective, nationally consistent and encompass all the influences on student outcomes in a given school or classroom. But I believe we have to move more towards the situation in places like Finland, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong where teaching is more highly paid and more highly respected. We’ve under-valued teachers for too long.
THE NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP ON EQUITY
Equity too will be a crucial focus for our efforts.
Few would dispute the need for us to tackle the effects of social disadvantage on school children.
Many children bring substantial social disadvantages to school which hold back their ability to learn. We have to recognise this and tackle it with the right teaching strategies and resourcing.
But we simply can’t accept that just because someone is from a poor background they should be allowed to drop out of school or get lower results or be subject to less rigorous standards.
The effects of underprivilege can be overcome with the right approach.
I’ve copped some flack for suggesting that the answer to educational inequality isn’t as simple as taking money off one school system and giving it to another.
We could do that to make ourselves feel better, but it wouldn’t help.
What will work is concentrated focus on improving quality at the school level.
The best school systems in the world ensure children are not left behind. That has to be our attitude too.
The new National Partnership is going to give extra funding to the most disadvantaged schools to help them turn things around – by attracting high-achieving teachers, providing more one-on-one help to struggling students, engaging parents and getting the local community more involved.
We will only be able to make improvements of this sort if we have full transparency of information. The Commonwealth, States and parents have to know which schools, which classrooms and which individual students need the most help so we can help them. So we have to demand more and better types of information and assist poorly performing schools to improve.
This isn’t about publishing dumb league tables so they can punish failure. It’s about gathering and disseminating important information so we can eliminate failure.
I know some have portrayed this as somehow anti-teacher or anti-public school.
The fact is that it’s neither. Under the Government’s plans for our schools, teacher recognition and rewards will rise and funding will follow need more closely. This makes it strongly pro-teacher, strongly pro-public school, indeed strongly pro-quality schools in all sectors and across the nation. It’s an opportunity for investment and improvement that must be grasped.
And as the Schools Assistance Bill has set out, we’re going to require the same levels of transparency from all schools, government and non-government.
A NEW NATIONAL CURRICULUM
Better teaching, better resourcing is to be matched under the Rudd Government by better curriculum, including in our primary schools.
The four initial advice papers on English, Mathematics, Science and History have been released.
There has already been significant debate, particularly over the teaching of history and literacy, but generally the approaches have met with strong support right across the community.
As I’ve said before: when it comes to curriculum, especially the teaching of English, I’m a traditionalist, but I’m not going to impose my views. I believe decisions like this are better left to the experts not the politicians. There’s been too much culture war politics involved for too long.
Every Australian child must have the benefit of a high class curriculum and know what standards they must achieve. That’s why the national curriculum will be just that - a curriculum for all schools.
Some have recently argued that non-government schools should be exempted from the national curriculum and its accountability requirements. That’s dangerous, because all our children must be exposed to the knowledge they need at the standard required to flourish in today’s world.
There is no reason this standard cannot be achieved in a variety of ways, through delivery methods such as the International Baccalaureate, through the philosophies such as Steiner and Montessori. Different delivery methods that can achieve high standards.
CONCLUSION
Today it is my pleasure to formally open your conference
In doing so I want to thank your association for being such a constructive contributor to the debates that are informing the Rudd Government’s approach to school reform.
The changes will be substantial. But they are necessary. No one can be satisfied with the outcomes being achieved currently, especially in disadvantaged communities.
The Rudd Government is determined to make substantial improvements. Our approach will demand innovation and the meeting of exacting standards. Which of course will involve and have a huge impact of school leaders.
But while we’re setting tough challenges, we will be backing it up with the necessary resources and policy support.
The Education Revolution was one of the Government’s central promises and with your help we intend to succeed in making it a reality by improving outcomes across the nation’s primary schools.
Best wishes for your conference
Thank you.